From Francis Galton 22 February 1877
42 Rutland Gate
Feb 22/77
My dear Darwin
By this book post I return Tschouriloff1 with many thanks (after keeping in an unconscionable time, but I knew you did not want it & it was useful to refer to, to me.)
About the deaf & dumb men speaking with Castilian &c accent, according to their teachers I cannot help thinking it sufficiently explained by their imitation of the actions of the lips & of the teachers.2 I have tried in a looking glass, & it seems that I mouth quite differently when I speak broad Scotch; again, last year I was trying some experiments with Barlows “logograph” and the traces were greatly modified under different conditions of cadence.3
Let me before ending, heartily congratulate you on the German & Dutch testimonial of which I see a notice in to days “Times”.4 and take the opportunity of wishing you many, very many happy returns of the birthday.5
Ever sincerely Yrs. | Francis Galton
My wife is convalescent & already walks out a little.6
Footnotes
Bibliography
Barlow, William Henry. 1874. On the pneumatic action which accompanies the articulation of sounds by the human voice, as exhibited by a recording instrument. [Read 16 April 1874.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 22: 277–86.
Tschouriloff, Michel (Mikhail Petrovich Churilov). 1876. Étude sur la dégénérescence physiologique des peuples civilisés (causes de dégénérescence des peuples civilisés). Revue d’anthropologie 5: 605–64.
Summary
Attributes the Castilian accent of speech of deaf and dumb men to imitation of their teachers’ lip movements.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10859
- From
- Francis Galton
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Rutland Gate, 42
- Source of text
- DAR 105: A97–8
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10859,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10859.xml
